Live Free or Die Hard airs this Saturday, November 14 on Showcase at 4pm, 10pm, and 1:30am ET/PT
In Hollywood, you never say never. Just ask 53-year-old action icon Bruce Willis. For over a decade, after the mid-’90s release of Die Hard With A Vengeance, Willis swore that he would never do another sequel. But after his youngest daughter Scout rented him a copy of director Len Wiseman’s vampire classic Underworld (which featured Wiseman’s soon-to-be-wife Kate Beckinsale in the leading role), Willis was convinced that he had found the perfect partner-in-crime to help him resurrect the seemingly immortal wise-cracking super-cop, Detective John McClane, for another tussle with the bad guys in Live Free or Die Hard.
In this fourth Die Hard action epic -- which also stars Justin Long, Maggie Q, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead -- crime goes hi-tech. Threatening to bring down the planet’s major financial markets and plunge the world into total darkness with a handful of computer viruses and programs, a madman (played by seasoned madman Timothy Olyphant) holds the world hostage for a hefty ransom. Luckily, McClane stumbles upon genius computer hacker Matt Farrell (Long) who aids John in bringing down the madman while he hides out in cyberspace. Wiseman takes the series into the new millennium with a litany of explosive set pieces, jaw-dropping stunt work, groundbreaking special effects and clever soundbites.
Weeks before its summer 2007 theatrical release, I sat down with the witty and enigmatic Bruce Willis and the equally clever and charismatic Justin Long to chat about the making of the film, how Bruce deals with raising teenage daughters and being a “mature” action hero, and how Justin is computer illiterate in real life.
Over the years, there were so many rumors about a Die Hard IV, including one that paired you with Ben Affleck fighting in the jungle. Why did you decide to do the hi-tech story in Live Free or Die Hard?
LONG: That movie with you and Ben in the jungle came out, didn’t it? (laughs)
WILLIS: It was Cole Hauser, Ben wasn’t in it.
LONG: Sorry.
WILLIS: It just seemed like the right time. It was a good script and a bunch of different elements conspired to kind of bring it together. At a certain point, it was just a leap of faith. I just had to say, ‘Let’s take a shot.’ I had what (director) Len Wiseman had to say about the film, and I was pretty confident in the fact that if we got a good story that we could improve upon -- which is what we ultimately did -- we’d be fine. But, at the end of the day, when it’s the eleventh and a half hour, you just gotta say, ‘Here we go.’ Look, it could’ve sucked. But when I saw the first cut of the film, I was so impressed and relieved at the same time. We have a great film. But, the Ben Affleck thing, I don’t know where that came from. I heard that story, too.
How did you originally hook up with Len Wiseman, and how challenging was it making another Die Hard film since it would be compared to the previous ones?
WILLIS: I don’t know. I can’t really remember what I was doing last week, so to answer a question about something that happened a year ago. (laughs) I’m just kidding. I remember. Before I even met Len and sat down with him to talk about doing the film, my daughter, Scout, turned me on to the movie Underworld, and we sat up one night watching it, and I thought it was great. It just so happened that a couple of weeks later, Fox asked me to sit down with him, so it was a pretty easy choice to make. We both had similar ideas and similar goals as to the kind of Die Hard we wanted to make. It’s really easy to sit here and talk about the film now, because, it’s actually one of my favorite Die Hard films.
LONG: You mean your fourth or fifth? (laughs)
WILLIS: The weakest link really was Justin. (laughs) Len and I both wanted to stay away from the CG aspects, which would have been a real easy thing to do with a film like this, to try to compete with every other CG film that was coming out at the same time. But, it was a lot of fun to make. It was a tough shooting schedule, too, but it was worth it.
That explains why the action scenes look so real — because they are.
WILLIS: Yeah, for instance, the sequence in the tunnel, with the helicopter and the police cars, took a while. It was just before Thanksgiving. I would say almost ten days. It felt like ten days, but the second unit was in there doing the actual — like that car that you see flipping in the trailers — but that car was a real car flipping that they cabled up and I think they did that six or seven times before they were happy with it. And, then we had to do the helicopter stunt twice, but it was all real.
LONG: I had never done a movie like this before. It was just crazy for me to see how long and involved all these stunts and sequences were. When you see the movie, you sort of forget what you were doing. You forget what the means to the end is or what the end is going to be, and then you see it, and all those weeks and weeks of waiting and setups and da, da, da, just fades in seconds of film. The scenes that I freaked out about where I was doing push-ups and trying to get in character to deliver all the lines, they’re just like, ‘Blah!’ and then cut to another guy and then back to me, going, ‘Blah!’ I have a friend who works on the show CSI: Miami, and I was freaking out about my character and he said, ‘You are not going to have time to look good or bad. It’s just going to be like a quick shot of you going “Blah!” and then that’s it.’ So, it’s amazing, just considering all the time, and Bruce is probably used to it, but I had never done a movie like this and it was overwhelming to be a part of it.
In the first three Die Hard movies, it seemed like John McClane was a reluctant hero who didn’t really want to be the situation. After watching the fourth Die Hard, many critics have said it seems like John has finally embraced his role as an action hero.
WILLIS: Really?
Is that not the case? Especially when he is backed into a corner in Matt’s apartment.
WILLIS: No, that’s not the case. All through it, I’m reluctant. In fact, I think in this one I’m extra reluctant (laughs). One of the things that a friend of ours said early on — a kid named Jason Smilovic, who wrote Lucky Number Slevin — he came up with the idea that part of the mythology of Die Hard is that John McClane loves his country, loves his family and that he’s not going to let anybody hurt anyone that can’t defend themselves, which is, I think, the situation that you’re talking about in Matt’s apartment. I think that given a choice, being able to not have to do what I do in this film or in any of the Die Hard films, I wouldn’t do it.
In this film, John McClane appears very protective, if not like an overprotective father. Can you relate to that aspect of McClane’s personality?
WILLIS: I can relate to it, but that’s just kind of overly dramatized in the film. My relationship with my daughter is a lot more upfront that that. What we’ve done as parents is try to send the girls out into the world with as much information about what 16- and 18-year-old boys are thinking. We asked Justin…
LONG: And 28.
WILLIS: And 28-year-old boys and 52-year-old boys are thinking, and hopefully, that’ll keep them safe. (laughs) But, yeah, it’s just dramatized in the film. Actually, the character of Lucy McClane was not in the original draft of this film. It was an idea that kind of came to us as we went along and Mary Elizabeth Winstead really did a great job in this film and brought a lot of her own kind of McClane-isms to the film and helps out in a way towards the end of the film that is both funny and is a McClane-ism.
Are you involved with your own daughters’ lives?
WILLIS: No, not at all. I just tell them I want to meet them, that’s the only thing that I ask for. I just give them that look, that little look, and you know what? I always put one of them in charge. If they bring a little group of guys over to the house, if they have a pool party or whatever, I’ll just say, ‘Dude, what’s your name?’ and he says, ‘Sinjin,’ and I say, ‘Sinjin, you’re in charge. If anything happens to one of my daughters, I’m coming to you first, and then I’m going to kill all your friends right in front of you, and you’ll be last.' Generally, it works out well. No problems.
LONG: I gotta say, I had the good fortune of meeting his daughters and they are all very smart. They’re very elevated and very aware and wise. But they made fun of me and Len, but in a witty, mature way. They’re very smart. So, someone did a good job.
Justin, since you were the new kid on the set, I heard that Bruce and Len got a kick out of teasing you.
LONG: In terms of people making fun of me, they did for many reasons. I think the lower on the list you were…
WILLIS: Not the geek thing.
LONG: Not just the geek thing. There was the whole effeminate thing, the whole I have three testicles thing…
WILLIS: But you didn’t show your testicles.
LONG: I can’t help it. I win a lot of money that way. No, I don’t think anybody ever really – also, since I was the Mac Guy, everybody was bugging me about getting an iPhone. I remember one day, when it was announced, everyone went, ‘I want an iPhone.’ People that had never talked to me were like, ‘Hey, Justin.’
Do people ever come up to you on the street and talk to you like you are the Mac Guy?
LONG: Oh yeah, people often come up to me because of the Mac commercials. The funny thing about people recognizing me with the Mac thing is that they’re very casual about it. They never seem impressed. They’re just very much like, ‘Oh, there’s a tree, there’s a bowl, there’s the Mac guy…’ They’re very nonchalant about it. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be. People also ask me a lot of questions about computer. I play a hacker in this movie, and I had to deliver a lot of lines and exposition like, ‘Well, the algorithm is contacted to…'
WILLIS: We were really surprised about how much you didn’t know about computers. (laughs)
LONG: Yeah, I’m very, very computer illiterate. So, I just think it’s sort of funny that for somebody who is so retarded as I am, I’m playing the smart hacker guy. I get the worst of both worlds. I look like a geeky hacker, but I don’t know anything about computers.
WILLIS: It’s a lose-lose situation.
You used to say you couldn’t be an action hero past 50. What do you think about that now?
WILLIS: Well, I know a lot of cops that are actually my age. If you get in shape, I’m living testament to the fact that you can do a film like this and still survive. I had to work out a lot to get my muscles to the size that they protected my bones so my bones wouldn’t shatter when I dove onto the concrete floor. But, I lived through it, I get beat up and you see that onscreen. But I’m glad I didn’t wait a couple more years. Don’t try this at home. (laughs) There was a lot of healing. I wish I had kept a running log of just the wear and tear and how much actual hide got scraped off.
Is this really going to be the last Die Hard movie?
WILLIS: No, I don’t think so. I think that Fox is already talking about doing another one. I told them that I would do it if Len was involved. And Maggie Q, and Justin, of course, because we can’t do it without Justin. You know, it was 12 years between Die Hard 3 and this one, and 21 years is the span between all four of them, so you can see me when I was 31 and you can now see me in my 50’s. There are moments in this film where you see me getting up a little slower, and I do things that I probably shouldn’t be doing, but I’m ready for the next one, just as long as it’s as great or even greater than this one.